Smith wasn't sure what bothered him most. There was the incessant nattering of what felt like hundreds of human beings (it had to be only a few dozen) in a small, enclosed space. The lights in the mall were too bright, too grating, especially after all the time spent in parks and under trees and sunlight. There were women, too young, who were trying to look as though they were older and more professional, and there were older women who were trying to look young again. The men were, almost as a whole, attempting either to look like women or just merely inhuman. He did have to admire, though, the tenacity and patience of one man who seemed to have made an entire suit of chainmail out of soda ring-tops.
Solace seemed to be enjoying herself, although he was startled to discover that he couldn't tell. Whether it was because she was in more company than just himself, or because she was inside such an artificial environment as a mini-mall, he didn't know. But something about her posture and attitude had changed and made it harder for him to discern her moods. It was as though she had put up the polite façade that most humans walked around with. He hadn't realized until now that she had lacked that quality. And, really, now he was starting to wonder if it was that aspect of the evening that was grating on his nerves so much: the revelation that she, like the rest of the humans, could be so false.
Or maybe it was just that he didn't have her all to himself anymore.
No, it had to be the falseness. He was a computer program, he didn't get jealous. It just didn't happen. Damnable woman. He lead where she followed, watched as she threaded her way through the crowd, making polite greetings to everyone and finally slowing on the other side of the room.
"I can't believe the entire Westfield High gaggle showed up..." she murmured through a polite smile when they'd reached the other side.
He blinked. "Who?"
"That cluster of particularly offensive girls who want to be the entirety of Sailor Moon and then some senshi that haven't been discovered yet. If they come over and titter at me I'm going to turn them all into butterflies."
He blinked again. "You can't do that."
"No, but it'd be perfectly in character for me to threaten to." She sighed. "I think you got the better costume out of this deal. No one expects Dream to do anything but stand in a corner and look disapproving. I have to actually mingle. I didn't think there'd actually be so many of the high school crowd here..." It was half an apology, which wasn't what he'd expected this early in the evening.
"Are any of your friends here?"
"Not... wait, there's Julian." She put on the perkiest face he had ever seen on her and actually skipped over to the young man. Smith wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own optic sensors.
"Little sister..." Julian, who somehow had managed to look eerily feminine, was dressed in a simple suit and the same white-face makeup she had caked over the Agent's face. He bowed to Solace, presenting her with a mylar balloon in the shape of a fish.
She giggled. "Smile when you say that. You're supposed to be more unpleasant, you know." With that comment Smith suddenly realized who the young man was supposed to be. "Where are the rest of ..." there was a barely discernible pause. "Our brothers and sisters?"
Julian pointed across the room where a hooded figure with a giant book was lurking. "Our eldest brother is being sullen, as always..." he smirked. "It was the best costume I could think of for Richard. This way he can not talk to anyone and still be in character."
This actually sounded interesting. Smith stepped away from the wall, mentally scanning through the literature he had read. "Desire..."
"Dream." Julian put on an expression of intimate distaste, and for a few seconds Smith wasn't sure whether or not the man actually meant it. "And are you enjoying yourself for once?"
"I..."
Julian winked. Smith relaxed a fraction.
"... have agreed to accompany our younger sister. Whether I am enjoying myself or not is immaterial."
Solace winked at him, smiling and bobbing her fish-on-a-strong. "I think our brother ought to enjoy himself more."
Smith stared at her. He had no idea how she'd managed to convey the impression of the disjointed, colored-in speech balloons from the graphic novel. It was... eerie. "So you've said before," was all he could think of to say.
"We've all said it before."
A dark-haired girl in black jeans, a black shirt, and the white-face appeared at Smith's elbow as if she had been conjured there. Death, he supposed. Solace and Julian seemed to know her, and she grinned at them in return.
"Smith, this is Cassie..." Solace murmured. "Cassie, Smith."
Nods of greeting were exchanged. Smith revised his estimate of her age down from early twenties to mid-teens.
"So... just how dire is this party, anyway?" Julian said it in a comparatively normal tone of voice. Smith was starting to see why everyone had chosen the costumes they had... none of them were acting particularly out of character for their normal lives. But... didn't that defeat the purpose of the costume party?
Humans were so strange.
"It was supposed to be better." Solace pulled an exaggerated pout, but instead of the trembling tears that Smith was reasonably sure were supposed to flow, she merely rolled her eyes.
"Too many teenagers," Cassie said with all the authority of one of that group.
"Cassie, hon... isn't that a bit hypocritical?"
"Of course not. I'm the only one here qualified to make that judgment."
They all chuckled. Smith allowed himself to crack a smile.
"Who invited the beer brigade, anyway?" Solace rolled her eyes over in the direction of a number of men in their mid thirties who appeared to be flirting with the high school girls. "Isn't that moderately illegal?"
"Just a bit."
Cassie looked as though she were going to be sick.
"Don't think about it too much..." Solace advised, dropping character entirely and pulling an arm around the younger girl's shoulders. "Come on, let's go bother your dad."
They left Smith and Julian to themselves which, although somewhat disconcerting, was better than being left to his own devices. Smith glanced over at Julian. "Her father?"
"Yeah.... Richard comes to these events partially to watch over Cassie and partially because the rest of us are nagging him to get in touch with his inner... something. I don't know, but he's been extraordinarily uptight lately."
Smith arched an eyebrow. "Shouldn't that be left up to him?"
"Not when Cassie's starting to suffer for it. She's a teenager, she needs her father now possibly more than she ever will in her life."
The Agent couldn't argue with that. He'd seen, heard, read enough about the behavior of unsupervised and (at least from their point of view) unloved teenagers to know what a disaster the Cassie-and-her-father debacle could possibly be. And it didn't help that there was something... faintly wrong... with Richard's code. "Has he been examined, medically?"
Julian blinked. "You mean..." he paused, looking a little worried. "I don't think anyone's thought of that, no. You think he could be sick?"
"It is a possibility, and would explain any radical changes in behavior." Smith took a breath. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to say this in a room full of crowded people at what was supposed to be a felicitous event.
"What's that look?"
"What look?"
Julian's eyes narrowed. "That look. The look that says you've thought of something but you're not sure you want to say it..."
Perceptive human. "The majority of medical causes for radical behavior changes are either very noticeable... or ultimately fatal. Brain tumor, virus..."
Julian nodded, looking sick. "I get it, I get it. And you're right, I hadn't thought about that. If that's true..." he sighed heavily. Smith watched him with caution and detachment. "I don't know. I guess we'd better try and get him to go in for a physical or psychiatric evaluation soon, before whatever it is that's going on gets any worse."
Smith nodded slowly, not sure what else to say.
"So..." Julian cleared his throat, clearly changing the subject. "How are things going between you and Solace?"
The Agent gaped. "We're not involved..." too quickly. Far too quickly, he knew the man must think he was denying something, hiding something...
He laughed and shook his head. "Not that way. It's none of my business who Sol gets involved with ... or not... until she tells me. I mean, she's told me a lot about you..." his face turned serious. "Including what happened in the park. Are you two dealing with it okay?"
Oh. "I... don't know. There was a fight..." he trailed off.
Julian nodded, much to the Agent's surprise. "Not really surprising. That kind of thing ... it tends to turn a person's world upside down. Especially if it happens in a place or from a person where the victim used to feel safe, all of a sudden it's like everything's turned upside down and made sinister. Because one thing that used to give a feeling of security is suddenly made terrifying, the victim questions everything that used to be safe... including friends, family." Bitterness laced through his voice and was gone. "Frankly, I'm surprised she's handling it so well."
Quiet, calm. "You sound as though you know."
"It's hard. They say one in every four women is a rape victim, but they don't say anything about the stats for men. Solace and I both know a number of people, or friends of friends... I hand out numbers and people to see at the firm, and she runs weekly help notices in the magazine... you're not alone, that sort of thing. Sometimes it helps, a little."
Smith couldn't find anything to say to that. He had observed humans at their day to day lives, and only over the past few weeks was he starting to realize that he had barely scratched the surface. Even the philosophical, abstract conversations with Solace were starting to take on practical meaning. There was a moment of drowning, of feeling as though the entire Matrix was trying to hurl itself down his throat. Julian watched, concern all over his face. Smith took a deep breath. Adjust. He had to adjust. His mind felt fogged over.
"I can't believe you're trying this, again, here..."
Both men turned around sharply at the sound of the woman's voice, low but still tinged with anger. Even in her costume Solace looked as though she might bite the head off of the man she was speaking to. The people around them were moving further back, giving them a three foot berth, no small feat in the middle of the mall.
"What is going on?"
Julian didn't respond. Smith turned around, saw the man blanching even under the white-face.
"What is going on?"
"... damn... I didn't think we'd see him again....oh, Solace, baby, don't do anything stupid..."
"Julian!"
The man looked over at him. "That's her ex-husband."
Time froze. Everyone in the store blurred to a stop. Smith went back over his conversations with Solace carefully, searching for any hint, any possible even backhanded mention of an ex-husband. She had mentioned an old boyfriend once, but that was it. Ex-husband? When had this happened? When he hadn't been looking? And what in the name of...
Time resumed.
"... need you, don't you understand that? She needs you."
She?
" ...not my problem. You got yourself into it, and now you're just going to have to get yourself out." She turned to go. Any crowd around the two had dissolved, and Richard was standing on the edges of the carefully not-watching throng with his arms protectively around his daughter.
The man... whoever he was... grabbed Solace's arm. "Sol..."
Solace whirled, throwing the man's arm off with more violence than was necessary. "Don't start with me, Kerr. Not here, not now, not ever again. Whatever you thought I owed you, think again. And whoever you knocked up after the divorce..." she snapped the word out like a bullet, "You take care of your own children and don't come crying to me."
Julian and Smith flanked her in identical swift motions. Kerr looked up at them with the ugly stare of the not-quite-stable. "Brought your bodyguards this time?"
Solace's return smirk was more grimace than grin. "You have no idea."
"I think you'd better go, Desmond..." Julian said quietly.
"Yes, I think I better had." The man turned to go, then stopped and stared at Smith. Time seemed to freeze again as the Agent had the uncanny feeling that the man knew exactly what he was, and exactly what was going on.
Time resumed.
The man left. Solace slumped a little bit, and the crowd started to flow more normally again, sensing that the drama had dissipated. Julian touched her shoulder, but she shook it off. Smith didn't try. "Shall we go?" He was getting thoroughly sick of the party anyway.
"Yeah..." Solace took a deep breath. "Yeah. I'll talk to you later, Julian, okay?"
The man nodded. Something bizarre and complex passed through them, then to Richard and Cassie as Julian glanced over. Smith thought briefly of trying to decipher it, and then decided that getting out of the damn building was more important. He shadowed her the whole way out like some sort of forbidding protector. Perfectly in character too, he thought bitterly.
He was never getting dressed up in costume again.
The air outside was clear, fresh, and blessedly free of the scent of so many humans. Smith closed his eyes and took a second to calm himself. He hadn't realized how utterly furious he had been. Solace stood beside him, not moving, locked in her own cycle of emotions. He would wait until they both settled down. She wasn't going anywhere, and he could question her later. Or just... well, he didn't know what else to do. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
Right then. Smith shook his head, leading the way out to the car. Humans were so strange.
Solace seemed to be enjoying herself, although he was startled to discover that he couldn't tell. Whether it was because she was in more company than just himself, or because she was inside such an artificial environment as a mini-mall, he didn't know. But something about her posture and attitude had changed and made it harder for him to discern her moods. It was as though she had put up the polite façade that most humans walked around with. He hadn't realized until now that she had lacked that quality. And, really, now he was starting to wonder if it was that aspect of the evening that was grating on his nerves so much: the revelation that she, like the rest of the humans, could be so false.
Or maybe it was just that he didn't have her all to himself anymore.
No, it had to be the falseness. He was a computer program, he didn't get jealous. It just didn't happen. Damnable woman. He lead where she followed, watched as she threaded her way through the crowd, making polite greetings to everyone and finally slowing on the other side of the room.
"I can't believe the entire Westfield High gaggle showed up..." she murmured through a polite smile when they'd reached the other side.
He blinked. "Who?"
"That cluster of particularly offensive girls who want to be the entirety of Sailor Moon and then some senshi that haven't been discovered yet. If they come over and titter at me I'm going to turn them all into butterflies."
He blinked again. "You can't do that."
"No, but it'd be perfectly in character for me to threaten to." She sighed. "I think you got the better costume out of this deal. No one expects Dream to do anything but stand in a corner and look disapproving. I have to actually mingle. I didn't think there'd actually be so many of the high school crowd here..." It was half an apology, which wasn't what he'd expected this early in the evening.
"Are any of your friends here?"
"Not... wait, there's Julian." She put on the perkiest face he had ever seen on her and actually skipped over to the young man. Smith wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own optic sensors.
"Little sister..." Julian, who somehow had managed to look eerily feminine, was dressed in a simple suit and the same white-face makeup she had caked over the Agent's face. He bowed to Solace, presenting her with a mylar balloon in the shape of a fish.
She giggled. "Smile when you say that. You're supposed to be more unpleasant, you know." With that comment Smith suddenly realized who the young man was supposed to be. "Where are the rest of ..." there was a barely discernible pause. "Our brothers and sisters?"
Julian pointed across the room where a hooded figure with a giant book was lurking. "Our eldest brother is being sullen, as always..." he smirked. "It was the best costume I could think of for Richard. This way he can not talk to anyone and still be in character."
This actually sounded interesting. Smith stepped away from the wall, mentally scanning through the literature he had read. "Desire..."
"Dream." Julian put on an expression of intimate distaste, and for a few seconds Smith wasn't sure whether or not the man actually meant it. "And are you enjoying yourself for once?"
"I..."
Julian winked. Smith relaxed a fraction.
"... have agreed to accompany our younger sister. Whether I am enjoying myself or not is immaterial."
Solace winked at him, smiling and bobbing her fish-on-a-strong. "I think our brother ought to enjoy himself more."
Smith stared at her. He had no idea how she'd managed to convey the impression of the disjointed, colored-in speech balloons from the graphic novel. It was... eerie. "So you've said before," was all he could think of to say.
"We've all said it before."
A dark-haired girl in black jeans, a black shirt, and the white-face appeared at Smith's elbow as if she had been conjured there. Death, he supposed. Solace and Julian seemed to know her, and she grinned at them in return.
"Smith, this is Cassie..." Solace murmured. "Cassie, Smith."
Nods of greeting were exchanged. Smith revised his estimate of her age down from early twenties to mid-teens.
"So... just how dire is this party, anyway?" Julian said it in a comparatively normal tone of voice. Smith was starting to see why everyone had chosen the costumes they had... none of them were acting particularly out of character for their normal lives. But... didn't that defeat the purpose of the costume party?
Humans were so strange.
"It was supposed to be better." Solace pulled an exaggerated pout, but instead of the trembling tears that Smith was reasonably sure were supposed to flow, she merely rolled her eyes.
"Too many teenagers," Cassie said with all the authority of one of that group.
"Cassie, hon... isn't that a bit hypocritical?"
"Of course not. I'm the only one here qualified to make that judgment."
They all chuckled. Smith allowed himself to crack a smile.
"Who invited the beer brigade, anyway?" Solace rolled her eyes over in the direction of a number of men in their mid thirties who appeared to be flirting with the high school girls. "Isn't that moderately illegal?"
"Just a bit."
Cassie looked as though she were going to be sick.
"Don't think about it too much..." Solace advised, dropping character entirely and pulling an arm around the younger girl's shoulders. "Come on, let's go bother your dad."
They left Smith and Julian to themselves which, although somewhat disconcerting, was better than being left to his own devices. Smith glanced over at Julian. "Her father?"
"Yeah.... Richard comes to these events partially to watch over Cassie and partially because the rest of us are nagging him to get in touch with his inner... something. I don't know, but he's been extraordinarily uptight lately."
Smith arched an eyebrow. "Shouldn't that be left up to him?"
"Not when Cassie's starting to suffer for it. She's a teenager, she needs her father now possibly more than she ever will in her life."
The Agent couldn't argue with that. He'd seen, heard, read enough about the behavior of unsupervised and (at least from their point of view) unloved teenagers to know what a disaster the Cassie-and-her-father debacle could possibly be. And it didn't help that there was something... faintly wrong... with Richard's code. "Has he been examined, medically?"
Julian blinked. "You mean..." he paused, looking a little worried. "I don't think anyone's thought of that, no. You think he could be sick?"
"It is a possibility, and would explain any radical changes in behavior." Smith took a breath. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to say this in a room full of crowded people at what was supposed to be a felicitous event.
"What's that look?"
"What look?"
Julian's eyes narrowed. "That look. The look that says you've thought of something but you're not sure you want to say it..."
Perceptive human. "The majority of medical causes for radical behavior changes are either very noticeable... or ultimately fatal. Brain tumor, virus..."
Julian nodded, looking sick. "I get it, I get it. And you're right, I hadn't thought about that. If that's true..." he sighed heavily. Smith watched him with caution and detachment. "I don't know. I guess we'd better try and get him to go in for a physical or psychiatric evaluation soon, before whatever it is that's going on gets any worse."
Smith nodded slowly, not sure what else to say.
"So..." Julian cleared his throat, clearly changing the subject. "How are things going between you and Solace?"
The Agent gaped. "We're not involved..." too quickly. Far too quickly, he knew the man must think he was denying something, hiding something...
He laughed and shook his head. "Not that way. It's none of my business who Sol gets involved with ... or not... until she tells me. I mean, she's told me a lot about you..." his face turned serious. "Including what happened in the park. Are you two dealing with it okay?"
Oh. "I... don't know. There was a fight..." he trailed off.
Julian nodded, much to the Agent's surprise. "Not really surprising. That kind of thing ... it tends to turn a person's world upside down. Especially if it happens in a place or from a person where the victim used to feel safe, all of a sudden it's like everything's turned upside down and made sinister. Because one thing that used to give a feeling of security is suddenly made terrifying, the victim questions everything that used to be safe... including friends, family." Bitterness laced through his voice and was gone. "Frankly, I'm surprised she's handling it so well."
Quiet, calm. "You sound as though you know."
"It's hard. They say one in every four women is a rape victim, but they don't say anything about the stats for men. Solace and I both know a number of people, or friends of friends... I hand out numbers and people to see at the firm, and she runs weekly help notices in the magazine... you're not alone, that sort of thing. Sometimes it helps, a little."
Smith couldn't find anything to say to that. He had observed humans at their day to day lives, and only over the past few weeks was he starting to realize that he had barely scratched the surface. Even the philosophical, abstract conversations with Solace were starting to take on practical meaning. There was a moment of drowning, of feeling as though the entire Matrix was trying to hurl itself down his throat. Julian watched, concern all over his face. Smith took a deep breath. Adjust. He had to adjust. His mind felt fogged over.
"I can't believe you're trying this, again, here..."
Both men turned around sharply at the sound of the woman's voice, low but still tinged with anger. Even in her costume Solace looked as though she might bite the head off of the man she was speaking to. The people around them were moving further back, giving them a three foot berth, no small feat in the middle of the mall.
"What is going on?"
Julian didn't respond. Smith turned around, saw the man blanching even under the white-face.
"What is going on?"
"... damn... I didn't think we'd see him again....oh, Solace, baby, don't do anything stupid..."
"Julian!"
The man looked over at him. "That's her ex-husband."
Time froze. Everyone in the store blurred to a stop. Smith went back over his conversations with Solace carefully, searching for any hint, any possible even backhanded mention of an ex-husband. She had mentioned an old boyfriend once, but that was it. Ex-husband? When had this happened? When he hadn't been looking? And what in the name of...
Time resumed.
"... need you, don't you understand that? She needs you."
She?
" ...not my problem. You got yourself into it, and now you're just going to have to get yourself out." She turned to go. Any crowd around the two had dissolved, and Richard was standing on the edges of the carefully not-watching throng with his arms protectively around his daughter.
The man... whoever he was... grabbed Solace's arm. "Sol..."
Solace whirled, throwing the man's arm off with more violence than was necessary. "Don't start with me, Kerr. Not here, not now, not ever again. Whatever you thought I owed you, think again. And whoever you knocked up after the divorce..." she snapped the word out like a bullet, "You take care of your own children and don't come crying to me."
Julian and Smith flanked her in identical swift motions. Kerr looked up at them with the ugly stare of the not-quite-stable. "Brought your bodyguards this time?"
Solace's return smirk was more grimace than grin. "You have no idea."
"I think you'd better go, Desmond..." Julian said quietly.
"Yes, I think I better had." The man turned to go, then stopped and stared at Smith. Time seemed to freeze again as the Agent had the uncanny feeling that the man knew exactly what he was, and exactly what was going on.
Time resumed.
The man left. Solace slumped a little bit, and the crowd started to flow more normally again, sensing that the drama had dissipated. Julian touched her shoulder, but she shook it off. Smith didn't try. "Shall we go?" He was getting thoroughly sick of the party anyway.
"Yeah..." Solace took a deep breath. "Yeah. I'll talk to you later, Julian, okay?"
The man nodded. Something bizarre and complex passed through them, then to Richard and Cassie as Julian glanced over. Smith thought briefly of trying to decipher it, and then decided that getting out of the damn building was more important. He shadowed her the whole way out like some sort of forbidding protector. Perfectly in character too, he thought bitterly.
He was never getting dressed up in costume again.
The air outside was clear, fresh, and blessedly free of the scent of so many humans. Smith closed his eyes and took a second to calm himself. He hadn't realized how utterly furious he had been. Solace stood beside him, not moving, locked in her own cycle of emotions. He would wait until they both settled down. She wasn't going anywhere, and he could question her later. Or just... well, he didn't know what else to do. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
Right then. Smith shook his head, leading the way out to the car. Humans were so strange.